Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1887-03-18
PRLSCILLA


The Spectator
PRLSCILLA.
Snow crystals were filling the air.
Houses, fences, and trees were losing their
cearness Of outline in the clinging white.
The brown Of the roads. the stiff spikes Of
frozen grass, and the withered stems of last
summers flowers still showed the heecy
wilderness.
As the whitish darkness grew an hour
before the sun-setting of "A clearer day. il
henmed IN a one stored. gable-roofed, New
England house. showing as the darkness
deepened, yellow light flashing forth at
moments from one of It's highest. many
paned windows The light came from the
blazing logs in an old-fashioned open fire
place, brick lined and black Brass and
irons, polished to the last degree Of bright
ness, flung back and forth the CHEEKY flash
ing light.
Now the logs fall together an the blaze
springs higher, revealing more fully the
quaint old room and Mary Alden sitting be-
fore a spinning wheel. She is daughter of
John and Priscilla, but they are John and
Priscilla of later date than the puritan John
and the laughing Priscilla who said "Whv
don't you speak for yourself, John =
don't know how John Alden's Priscilla
looked, but this Pris-, Mary, mean-is
a girl with a mass of golden hair, which
to night has slippled from its coil and fallen
down her back Her eyes are blue They
are the eyes Of woman who can love
They have just begun to have troubled
lights within their depths since the new
minister came. Her skin is of the warm
white Of some roses, deepening the cheeks
to the delicate blush at the heart of the
rose. Her lips take tender curves.
She leans slightly forward from her high
backed chair. Her foot is on the treadle :
her hand is yet uplifted holding the yarn.
But her foot fOrgets 10 move and the wheels
to fly round rs she gazes beyond the spin
ming wheel at things we cannot see in the
heart Of the fire.
The shifting light leaps high, then low ;
now golden, now ruddy with warmth now
dropping for moment to darkness only to
light up again, revealing more fully the
quaint old room with low ceiling and white
boarded floor the brown, time -darkened
spinning wheel, and-surey this girl in the
old-fashioned dress of blue home-spun
deep, stiff linen cuffs and neckerchief scarce
winter than the bosom it crosses, is Pris-
ella
The dreaming Priscilla
The puritan maiden Priscilla
Through the silence of the snow comes
at times sound so common that Priscilla
does not heed 1.-THE rushing of many wa
tiers, and we know that not for away is the
restless mighty ocean.
We are ON that strangely shaped bit of
New England which runs out and curls
around in the ocean in such curious way
and whose real name has such a flavor of
fisher folk-Cape Cod We have CHANGED
too. on one of those ld-fashioned houses
where the fires are yet lit from the pine
needles of the woods behind.
Suddenly stamping of feet is heard at
the door. IA hand is ON the latch and Mary
springs from her dreams To meet "a rush of
cold air, gust of snow-tlakeS, and IA big
rough coated man with n voice to match in
bigness, and roughness and-warmth.
Mary my girl -
And Priscilla jumps into his arms with IA
half articulate cry of delight, never mind
ing the snowy coat.
"Oh, father Oh, father ~ is all she says;
but he is satisfied as she pulls him to the
fire and takes off his hat and brushes away
the glistening drops the snow has turned
into on mustache and whiskers. He is used
to having her baby him, and he likes it,
this rough, weather-beaten sea-captain
And the man who is king ON the miles
Standish - who SAYS to this sailor, Go -
and he goes: and TO that boatswan, Come
and he comes, this man sits meekly down
in the big armchair she orders him into
and obediently pulls off the snow soake ed
boots and puts on the wool-lined slippers
she brings There is delicious sense of
ease in slipping off his authority and obey
ing the orders of his little captain, though
there is no knowing, if he be in a merry
or tender humor, but that at any moment
he may snatch her up TO perch her on his
shoulder, as if she were a child again or
else pull her down to his knee-which is
the later fashion.
The two captains have gay times togeth-
er on the precious days the big one is at
home She is his only one, He has been
her only one-until now. And she doesn't
acknowledge that last yet, even in her
dreams.
When the overcoat has been hung away
and the big captain has poked up the logs
to a brighter blaze, Mary hangs the black
ened kettle ON the crane and by the time
the water is hot, the little, round oaken ia
BILE is covered with a snowy cloth and old
fashioned blue-and- white china, Then the
coffee is made and steak broiled when the
Goals are red and there is no smoke Real
cream for the coffee and delicious golden
butter for the bread, and a supper fit for a
king or two captains is ready.
The captain swallows all the coffee with
out conjunction, for Mary drinks only
milk or hot water. Perhaps that is one Sc
cret of her tea-rose complexion, together
with the exercise she gets in the homework,
for she is a capable little housewife, and
can do anything about the house. Not that
the homework depends entirely on her.
They have a handmaiden of about fifty
years, bony and muscular, and grabbed and
faithful, who has been their maid of all
work ever since Marys mother died seven
years ago,
1t would have been pretty lonely for the
young Priscilla without the companionship
of this elderly maiden during the long alb
sences of Captain Alden. Grim and home
ly the one gentle and lovely the other
the two are fast friends. Mary humors
the whims of Rachel, and Rachel in return
scolds and watches over and privately wor-
ships Pris- Mary.
Mischief is in the captains eyes as he
swallows his coffee and masticates his beef
steak He waits, however, until the table
is cleared. then Mary finds herself set sud
denly as ON pedestal where lately the sup
per dishes had been, and the captain is
walking around the table thinking he new
er saw such pretty bit of living statuary.
A moment later the mischief fades from
his eyes as he sees the strong likeness to
another young girl he knew years ago He
catches her on to his shoulder, thence down
into his arms, with kiss hiding the flush
of tears in his eyes
Now tell me all about it," he says.
"What means this Puritan rig-and Grand
mother Alden's spinning wheel y
ITS for an old folks entertainment at
the church, says Mary, 'and | ann To be
Priscilla, the Puritan maiden and Jacob
Browne is to be John Alden, and-oh, fla
Their couldn't you be Miles Standish
You'd be a splendid Miles Standish y
And have you reject me y says the cap
tain. Il couldn't stand that I'd act worse
than Miles Standish ten times over.
IL think it was John Alden that acted
badly ~ says Mary, 81 hate him don't
think l could ever have forgiven him ~
"Why so y said her father.
ooh, for making me pop the question l
should feel so Inundated that l should for
ever after hate the man who made me do
it, Such coward Making a girl say